Hunting for Jay
by JaneApricity
Summary: Katrine Claythorne knew Hunter Zolomon a long, long time ago. And now everyone knows who Zoom is. But Katrine is interested in Jay Garrick: the man hidden beneath the blackness. And she will do anything to find him. [I know, I have issues.]
1. Chapter 1

There was the sound of electricity crackling behind me. But it was more than that. It was the Speed Force, powering a man who in no way deserved such abilities.

I turned, body stiff and cold not with abuse, but with fear.

Which, in a way, might have been a form of abuse after all.

"How many died?" My voice was cold. I looked into his face. It was the opposite of demonic. It was strong, like the hero that the people thought it belonged to. It was light and grinning, like he'd just recieved very good news.

Which meant that, for me, it would be bad.

"Seven," he said. His voice was normal, instead of vibrating sinisterly. He knew I hated that voice. He knew this voice-Hunter's voice-kept me from hating him.

He knew how to play all the games. Games with time, games with the Speed Force, games with this world, games with me.

I knew how to play too.

"Did they have families? Children? Wives?" I paused. "Mothers?" He flinched.

"Why do you ask me these things ?" He put the smile back on-the crazy, giddy one-and stepped rowards me. His voice was soft.

"I want to remember why I can never join you," I said, looking up at him with just the smallest, coldest sliver of defiance.

"You can!" He put his hands on my arms, pulling me a little closer. "Why run from me?"

I curled my fingers around the neck of his suit, my fingertips just touching his throat.

"You know I can't."

"You can't stop me either."

"I know. But I'll try."

"You can't outrun me, Katrine."

"No one can outrun you."

He kissed me. Not Zoom, the demon in a mask. Hunter Zolomon, the insane, the passionate.

I kissed him back, searching. Searching for a man I only saw in his moments of affection. When I could convince him off a final kill. When I saw him flinch at the memory of his father killing his mother. When he put on the helmet and played at being a good guy.

I was searching for Jay Garrick. I knew he was in there, hiding in the darkness. I wasn't fool enough to think I could bring out Jay for good. Zoom was too fast, Hunter too passionate. I knew it just as well as I knew that this man would break me, heart and soul.

But I would bask in Jay Garrick when I found him, for however short a time. And I would love him until Zoom caught up.


	2. Chapter 2

The masked man sat in his little carbine cell, muted and tethered. He was a trophy, the perfect symbol of Zoom's power.

I remembered first finding him. He'd rapped frantically on the walls, a message I didn't understand.

I had at first assumed it was morse code, which I didn't know. And besides. I was too scared of Zoom to stay for long. I left the room to huddle on my bed, frightened and disoriented.

But I found myself coming back. At first, I only peered in for seconds at a time. Then I began to linger, yearning for the company, however incoherent. After a time, I realized that morse code would be pointless; you couldn't do a long knock. There was no difference in any of the knock's volume or placement.

I thought that perhaps he was counting out the number of each letter in it's placement in the alphabet. But none of his sequences went past five.

Eventually I broke his code, of course. I didn't dare keep the table then. I don't even dare now. I had to do it mentally, and became quite quick with it.

"JAY," he would knock. "GARRIK."

Over and over.

"I KANT KONTAKT HIM," I dared to rap back after nearly a week.

"I AM JAY."

I thought it was impossible. Jay Garrick, no longer saving the people from Zoom? Locked away in his lair, useless as myself.

Oh, Zoom. Zoom was so terrifying in those days. He still terrifies a part of me, but I often mistake it for excitement.

His long fingers, the black eyes... I hated those eyes. There was nothing human left in them. That's why I was so shocked when I saw Hunter's face.

I had been there two weeks. I had never been hurt, only fed and watched by those inky eyes. Sometimes he came close enough that I could feel the blue sparks zapping next to my skin, an impeccable analogy for how my nerves fared.

But then he took off his mask and I understood. I understood everything.

Well, almost everything.

"Jay?" I cried. Jay had come to rescue me! But why dress as Zoom to do so? Did he have metas that Jay had to sneak past?

Jay's face went from a handsome, deadly seriousness to a smile. The sort with a secret that shows the lines in your eyes and the patronizing angle on your features.

"No, Katrine," he said in the voice that had once inspired so much hope. "I am not Jay Garrick."

I froze, still sitting on the bed in the middle of the warehouse-like cave.

"Zoom is..." Jay's twin. Jay's clone. Anything but Jay Garrick himself.

"Jay Garrick is an invention. A lie, a trick for the public. But it's so tiresome playing hero." As the evil words came from his mouth, he kept smiling. Why did he keep smiling?

"Why?" It was broken-sounding.

"Because to truly tear something down," said Ja-Zoom? "And for that to mean something, it must be a beacon first. People have to see hope before it can be crushed."

There was a passion in that voice. A broiling, burning passion that lit up his features. This man was insane. Our last hope was insane.

Something in me felt like his blue sparks. That face was familiar. I had seen it before. Those features, that look, but... different.

"Why am I here?" I asked, fighting the tears out of my voice.

"I... was lonely." The insane look fell away, leaving his face unfamiliar. This wasn't the faked hero. It wasn't the almost-Zoom that was maddeningly familiar. This seemed to be affectionate. Something in me sparked again.


	3. Chapter 3

It took me some time to figure out why the man between Jay and Zoom was familiar, and how I knew him. It had been three weeks since he'd taken me before it really clicked.

"Hunter Zolomon," I said.

Zoom turned his black eyes on me.

I was less afraid now. I was still terrified, of course, but I didn't cower. I didn't whimper. I didn't even cry. This man, whoever he was, meant me no harm. Not yet, at least.

"Very good," he said in the vibrating voice that always sounded like a sneer. "How did you remember?"

I barely remembered at all. He'd been a strange boy, in the same foster home as me a few times. He'd been older, paying the younger ones no mind. Especially a little girl like me.

I remembered seeing him in the news. But he'd been haggard, dirty, long-haired and blood-stained. No one would have dreamed of connecting him with Jay Garrick, who appeared only weeks after the first Metahumans had attacked.

"I want to know how you remembered me," I said, lifting my chin. "I want to know why you brought me here."

"Oh, Katrine..."

"And please take off the mask. And don't do that with your voice. You- you don't need to intimidate me."

Zoom paused, then pulled off the mask. There was Hunter Zolomon, serial murderer and my captor.

"I was lonely, Katrine," he said. "I remembered you. You were always nice to me. The other children were scared of me."

"I didn't remember you being scary," I said. Why am I here, I wanted to scream again. Why do you want me? I'm of no use to you! Villains don't get lonely!

Someone came out of Hunter. Jay was looking at me, eyes and smile almost innocent.

"Are you scared of me now?"

Yes. "No."

He walked towards me, his black-clad frame growing larger as he neared. "I don't scare you?"

Yes you- don't? I looked into the face of Jay Garrick. The hero, locked away in a bad guy. A man who craved a little compassion, a little company.

"You repel me. But you don't scare me."

Jay looked like it was Christmas.

"You'll learn, Katrine. You'll learn to be like me."

He pulled on the mask and vanished in a streak of deadly blue.

I'll never be like you, I swore internally.

I haven't broken my promise yet. I've danced the edge for the sake of love, but I never gave in for the sake of right.


	4. Chapter 4

I can leave whenever I want to.

I think. I've never tried. Likely, Zoom would become an emotional storm and destroy and massacre. But he wouldn't touch me. I'm safe.

I choose to stay, at least. Regardless of what I can or cannot do, or what may or may not happen, I choose to stay here, in Zoom's lair.

I wouldn't have chosen that at first. Not that I could have. I was terrified of his reaction. And after the first month, I spent a lot of time in handcuffs regardless.

One time, Jay caught me talking to his prisoner. The man kept claiming that he was "JAY GARIK," so I had come to assume that Hunter found a man who looked similar, then stole his identity and pretended to be a benevolent Meta.

"I AM KATRIN," I rapped.

"GET ME OUT."

"I KANT."

"PLEASE HELP."

"I KANT."

I hated having to knock those words, but I did so often.

I spent much longer than usual there that day, however. The man had given up pleading for help and a true conversation had ensued.

"WHY R U HERE," asked the masked man.

"ZOOM SAYS HE IS LONELY."

"ZOOM IS EVIL."

"Am I?" demanded his vibrating voice. I spun from my position on the ground to see him, dark and sparking.

"Jay, I-"

A nanosecond's blur of blue later, I was sitting on the bed, handcuffed to the headboard behind me. I strained forward, cuffs cutting into my wrists.

"Do not talk to him," said Zoom demonically.

"Please! I was... I was lonely." The words were pitiful.

Zoom hesitated, then flashed away. When I woke in the morning, I had been freed. That afternoon, he visited me without the mask. To keep me company, I could only presume.

A few similar incidents occurred, but they grew scarcer and scarcer until they stopped altogether.

But I never forgot the helplessness. I tucked the feeling away, storing it for when I needed to hate him. Hatred then wouldn't help.

I still store it. I don't need it yet. At times, when I love him too much, I can tap in. When Jay's been gone too long and I need to stop Zoom, if only for a moment.

Someday, I may even need to Hunter. The man with an almost admirable passion. The man who is almost forgivable. The man that is almost Jay. And if the day comes that I must stop him for good, I will need every scrap of hatred I can muster.

Or if the job is not mine. If his kills are avenged and our world is saved from Zoom, it will be easier to hate the man he was than grieve the man I lost.

So I save my hatred. What use is it here, now? When I cannot stop him, but only love a part of him?


	5. Chapter 5

Zoom's lair would not have been described as comfortable by any means. Not at first, at least. It was not without fault, but it was not without it's merits.

For one thing, it was plenty large. It seemed to have once been a factory or warehouse of some sort, likely for mining. Rooms had been neatly carved out of the stone, the only decoration an ominous array of piping and generators.

It was dark, for the most part. There were yellow lights in Zoom's "jail" room, and other rooms had holes in the ceiling that let the bluish light of day filter in. Or the moonlight, since I had mostly become a nocturnal creature.

I remember the first time I saw the caverns, right after Zoom took me. At first it was a blur of blue lightning, but after a few seconds I'd adjusted enough to both scream and see the rock-side flying past. Then we were still, stopped in a dark room.

I was handcuffed to the bed, the only furniture in an open room that lead to the rest of the cavern, the only semblance of privacy a few walls of machinery.

"Zoom." I said, voice dead and hoarse from the scream.

Zoom tilted his head, black eyes on me.

"Katrine."

And then he left.

He doesn't call me that now. A lot has changed since that day. Now he calls me Katnip, a nickname of his own creation. He liked to remember how, as a little girl, I wanted to pretend I was a cat.

Secretly, I thought I wasn't unlike the drug; I could bring out another side of him entirely.

The first time that he tried to call me Katnip, I was horrified. I had been there a month. I was no longer frightened I would wake up with his hand in my heart, but neither did I expect that I would give it to him.

"Lunch time, Katnip," he called.

"What did you call me?" I was standing in a room with a dirt floor where I could draw, write, or make patterns with pebbles. It was one of the few forms of entertainment I had.

"Katnip." He walked into the room, his mask off and a plate in hand. "Do you not remember me calling you that? At the Yeats' house."

"I remember," I said. "Please don't call me that."

"Why not?" He squatted in front of me, black suit still intimidating. I didn't take the plate of food.

"I don't like nicknames," I said. "And I don't want one from you." I nervously scraped my fingertip across a particularly rough rock.

Jay only smiled with a patronizing patience. "You will in time," he promised me. "Besides, you call me by a nickname. Jay."

A nickname meant we were friends. That we had a relationship other than captor and captive.

I love that nickname.


	6. Chapter 6

There was one everlasting issue at the crux of our relationship. Jay was a villain, and I was stubbornly not evil.

At first, we tried to change one another. We still played tug-of-war, me trying to pull Jay out of Zoom, and Zoom trying to pull the Hunter out of his Katnip.

Actually, at first, I could never have imagined loving him. Who could? Zoom had terrorized our city for months, killing our protectors and ravaging the infrastructure.

And there I was, in his lair. His captive. His hostage, perhaps?

I was terrified of what he would do to me. Would he starve me? Would he beat me? Would he go... further?

But Zoom, for all his darkness, didn't lay so much as a finger on me in abuse.

But humanity wasn't enough to make me fall in love. And I remember the moment when it first happened. Or at least, when I first realized it. I remember the panic, the little crackle of blue lighting in the pit of my stomach.

He'd just brought me food. It was apple pie and ice cream, which was incidentally a favorite of mine growing up. The apples were even Uncle Smith, the only sort to use.

"Thank you," I said. I had started saying that sarcastically, but over time it simply became habit.

"Of course, Katnip." He pulled off his mask. No one could deny that Jay Garrick was handsome, and I couldn't deny that there was attraction. At first it had been mixed with such a heavy dose of hatred that I didn't care. But over time, the hatred changed to tolerance. And tolerance to almost enjoying his company.

"And what did you do today?" I asked, taking a bite and raising my eyebrows.

Jay sat on the bed."Not even a guess?" he asked, looking at me. There were shards of daylight streaming in from above, cutting across his face. One sliver made his blue eyes crackle like Zoom's lightning.

"You were Jay Garrick today," I said, noting the red and blue leather suit. He wasn't wearing the helmet. Jay never brought that into the lair.

"Good," he said, maniacal grin flashing into being. "Why?"

"Yesterday, Killer Frost was here. I'm assuming a showdown?" I took another bite of pie.

Jay laughed. "Exactly, Katnip. According to the media and public, their beloved hero has just been incapacitated by Killer Frost."

"Why?" I asked. "What good does it do?"

"It doesn't do good! That's the point!" Zeal was burning in his face, and something burned in my stomach as I watched his face. I ignored it.

"I meant for your plan."

"Is my plan good now, Katnip?" he asked, a bit of eagerness hidden behind the banter. "But there is a reason for it. The people now have sympathy for their hero. Sympathy for hope itself."

"And how many people died on the sidelines?" I asked, tapping the back of my spoon against a roll of ice cream.

Jay frowned. "None."

My chest swelled a little. "Not one?"

Jay chuckled, a little forced. "That's a bad record for me."

"It's wonderful," I countered.

Jay was watching me closely.

"You smiled, Katrine."

My throat felt like it closed off, and I suddenly felt the need to breathe a little more deeply.

"What happened to Katnip?"

"Do you like Katnip?" He was watching me so intently, his face deadly serious.

How could one man go from passionate as a thousand fireworks to serious as the stony mountain we sat in? How could I, who placed such value on human life, ever feel this way about a man who threw lives away like they were candy wrappers?

I didn't know. I still don't know.

Pie forgotten, I reached out and touched his jaw. Jay was so broken in so many ways. I couldn't fix him, and the jagged edges would cut me to bits. And it would hurt so badly. But I could see the light streaming in through the shards, and at times, they could be so beautiful.

Some things are worth being cut up over.


	7. Chapter 7

I don't spend all my time in this lair. Just most of it. But every once in a while, Jay brings me outside.

Sometimes I'm told before hand. Sometimes, I just see a crackle of blue lightning and a smear of scenery before I'm standing in a forest, on a cliff-side, or even at an ocean.

I suppose you could call them dates. They feel deeper than that to me. Jay would get excited look. The grin that I could never dissect. Insane? Genius? Passionate? Or just pure glee? I decided on the later for these outings.

At first, he only brought me to reclusive places. Like he was eager to give me the world, but didn't trust me enough with people. He was too afraid that I would still run. I probably would have back then.

But now he'll bring me nearly anywhere. I come with him, and I leave with him happily. I don't agree with what he does.

But damn, I love the man.

The first time he took me into public, he took me to a bar called Jitterbug.

"Where are we?" I asked, staring around me. I hadn't seen other people in four months at this point. There were a few around the bar, sipping drinks, and a black guy singing smoothly up at a mic. After the constant dark grey of Jay's lair, the colorful atmosphere was almost shocking.

He gave me that grin. He wasn't dressed as Zoom or Jay; he was wearing normal clothing. He looked like a normal person. Except for that smile, with just a hint of insanity.

A smile just for me.

I didn't quite fit in here; the only clothes I had were jeans and tops. But I don't think Jay cared, and no one there mattered but him. We had our drinks and danced some to the crooning music.

At one point, an excited looking young man came up, asking for Jay's autograph. Jay smiled at him. Almost too nicely. But my heart swelled anyways. At least there were days when he did save people. Days when he did give people hope.

By the end of the night, he was holding me close to his chest and I was listening to his heart beating faster than a normal person's. It only made sense that someone with so much energy and passion would have a heart that did the same.


	8. Chapter 8

Needless to say, things weren't always so... fluffy.

"How many, Jay?"

"Katni-"

"How many?!"

"Thirty-two."

I stared at the man before me. No, not a man. Something else. Something dark. He turned his black eyes on me.

"Thirty-two men, women and children. Thirty-two kills. Thirty-two victories, Katnip!"

Part of me wanted to attack Jay. Rip away his suit and tear back his skin and make him bleed. But every pain I caused him would hurt me tenfold. And on top of that, I couldn't touch him. He'd just handcuff me to the wall and leave until he knew I loved him again.

"Thirty-two." I looked at the ground, heart splitting in two yet again. Loving this man was the most idiotic choice I had ever made, yet I made it every day. And I questioned-every hour-if it waa not just hard, but wrong.

"Thirty-two. But Katnip, there's only two lives I care about." He stepped towards me.

Jay's face was so beautiful even when his eyes were fully black and he had no grin. Even now, another part of me simply wanted to forget the thirty-two and kiss my Jay.

But I couldn't forget. It was like twisting a knife in my side just so I could remember that he'd wielded one.

The black faded from his eyes, and the vibrations from his voice.

"Mine and yours. Someday, they could be one," he said. Another offering of his heart in exchange for my soul.

"Yes. Someday you could stop this! We could just leave. They never even have to catch you, Jay. We can just go."

He smiled. This one had a hint of sadness in those blue eyes.

"I am the fastest man alive. But I would never stop running. And why run away when I can prove I'm master of this world?"

"Because you don't need to be!" I said. "Just come with me. Please."

"Katnip." He stroked my jaw with the backs of his fingers. "I can't."

"I know you won't," I whispered. "But I'll never stop trying to turn your passion for power into a zeal for something else. You can be Jay Garrick!"

"It's exhausting to play hero! And that's pretending to be a very bad one. Imagine doing that in real life."

"Yes. Imagine it!" I took his clawed hand in mine, fingers pressing into the black leather. "Imagine saving lives instead of taking them. Doing something I can be proud of."

I had two sets of tallies on the wall, scratched into a sheet of metal with a sharp rock. One was how many days I'd been here. A calendar for myself.

The other was how many people he'd killed. How many deaths he'd caused. It was a memorial. A sad one, yet it was all I could or could bear to give.

I could never deny that the temptation was strong. Forget order and morals and fighting to do the right thing and just be. Give in and do what I wanted, what Zoom wanted. His partner in life, love and crime. I had fantasies, hidden from daylight.

But I never could. It was the line I could nose cross, and I had those lines in the wall to remind me of it.

"But you will be proud of me," Jay swore. "Some day."

In a flash of blue lightning, he was gone. The fastest man alive.

Part of me already was proud.


	9. Chapter 9

Jay was sick.

He was terribly sick. He was dying, and I had no idea.

It was a serum he'd taken, one that he simply called Velocity. It was created to make him run faster. It was what gave him his lust for more speed. Or perhaps it was merely the start of a lust that was already there. The need to be the best that ever was.

That need was killing him. His very cells were degenerating, and I hadn't had the slightest clue.

But then, I also hadn't known there were other earths.

"Jay?" I walked into a room that was emitting strange sounds. He was standing in front of a blue blob, crackling with a thousand shades of why-the-hell-are-you-touching-the-dangerous-science-thing.

Jay turned, face split into that insane grin.

"I found it. I found a cure. An answer, Katnip!"

"A cure? For what?" My first thought was cancer, but why would a man who had killed so many people be doing such a noble thing?

"Me."

He vanished through the blob, and it disappeared.

"Jay?!"

Knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock. Knock.

Knock knock knock knock. Knock knock.

Knock knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock knock. Knock knock.

Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock knock.

Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock.

Knock. Knock knock knock knock.

EARTH ONE, the masked man had rapped.

WHAT EARTH ONE

NEW PLANET

OTHER UNIVERSE

YES

I was shaken to my core. Another universe. Another earth. But why did Jay need a cure?

The answer was obvious. He was sick. Or I was sick, since we were the only two people he cared about in any world.

That scared me. It scared me terribly. That Jay could be sick and I wouldn't have known. That one day he might have simply not come, and I would never know why.

For not the first time, I had an attack of fear. One that clenched at the bottom of my stomach with fangs of ice, and one that made my limbs shake with the stress of terror.

At first, it had been fear of what Zoom would do to me. Then fear of what Hunter would do to others. And finally, fear of what Jay would do to himself.

He never questioned them. But if Jay ever found me in the midst of one, he would hold me close enough that I could feel his heartbeat. I knew they hurt Jay, so I hid them as best I could.

It was easy this time; he was in another universe. Searching for a mystery cure to a mystery illness.

When he came back again, it had been quite some time. I'd had two of these terror attacks, both of which he missed. I hated myself for that fear and giving into it. Each time, I'd had to chant to myself that he'd found a cure for whatever it was.

"Jay?" I asked tentatively.

Jay swept me up into his arms. "They have it, Katnip. A final speedster. All I need is his speed."

I was so relieved to have him here to answer my questions that they all tumbled out at once.

"Who's sick? You, you need the cure, don't you? But why? What's wrong? Who's the speedster, why do you need his speed? Another world, Jay?" I looked up into his blue eyes, confused and worried and all of it smoothing over in his prescence.

Jay kissed me. A long, gentle kiss. Then he told me about the Velocity, and how a speedster named the Flash from Earth One could cure him.

"I just have to take his speed. It will take time, but I can do it, Katnip. I don't have to die."

I hadn't even known he was dying. And I didn't like what he had to do in order to prevent it. But in that moment, I was so happy that he was alive, that I was in his arms, that he'd washed the fear away.


	10. Chapter 10

Killer Frost, Firestorm, Reverb, and a few more of Jay's associates began to hang around the lair more.

They didn't like me. I was weak to them. A contemptable little pet for their Metahuman master. Zoom never let them disrespect me, but never let them know what I truly meant to him. That was leverage he could never give.

Reverb could find out, no doubt. But Reverb knew where not to pry.

"So," said Killer Frost in her sneering drawl, dragging her fingertips across my mattress. I grimaced internally. It would be cold for hours. "Why are you here?" She gave me a lazy, disgusted look.

I looked at the ground, playing the part of a meek little human. She snickered, walking to her boyfriend.

"Far be it from me to judge Zoom's hobbies," she said.

There was a crackling sound, and he was standing among us, eyes black and voice vibrating from behind the mask.

"Yes. Judge not lest you... be... judged..." With each word, he came closer, a blur between steps as though he'd merely teleported closer and closer. Killer Frost backed into Firestorm, heels scraping the concrete.

I watched, hiding a smile.

These were the people I truly wanted punished. They did Zoom's bidding, but I had no love for them as I did for Jay. If there was any chance I could get away with eliminating them, I would have.

Then came Jesse.

This was before the portal. Before Jay had his cure. I didn't know he was sick, and I didn't know why he had Jesse here.

I just barely recognized her as the daughter of Harrison Wells, founder of Star Labs. It took me some time before it clicked. When it did, I assumed that Jay had her held hostage to get Wells to give him more speed out of his lust to be best, not as a cure for his slow death.

I didn't talk to her at first. I so wanted to; Jay left me in the lair alone for long periods of time. I wanted some company other than knocking. But I was afraid to let her know I was there.

I was afraid that she would beg me to release her. That she would cast me as a villain like Jay. That I would be forced to take my place on either side of the delicate line that I straddled every day.

But I couldn't hold my peace when he started to torture her.

"No!" I screamed, running into the room. "Stop!"

Jay turned slowly. He was dressed as Zoom, his eyes black and body crackling blue.

"You don't have to do that," I hissed, walking up to him.

In that moment, I felt as though I could read Jay's every thought. He was furious at me. He was scared for me, now that Jesse knew I was associated with him. He couldn't stop, even if I begged.

"And lose my leverage with Harrison Wells?" he asked in his vibrating sneer.

"Lie to hime. Lie like you do so well," I sneered back. "But don't lay another finger on that girl."

We stared at one another. Jay was in that crackling darkness. Jay just might listen to me. His Katnip.

But was I enough?

He didn't touch her again.


	11. Chapter 11

After he found the Earth-1, Jay was away even more often than before.

I now dared to speak to Jesse, although I still feared Jay's retribution. I didn't say much. I didn't know what would happen if I told her Jay needed a cure, and I knew he would be furious if I gave away his name. There was a measure of trust between us, tenuous as it was. I would not break it.

"Do you know if my dad's safe?" Jesse asked me one day.

Her cell was not like the masked man's. His was lined with glass-like walls, but Jesse's was composed of sharp iron bars.

"I know less of anything out there than you do. But I think Zoom needs Wells to do something for him."

Jesse gripped the bars, her large eyes on mine.

"And can you help me escape?"

"So he can catch you again? And beat you, without anything I do capable of stopping him. Stay put, Jesse."

I tried to mask my shame with reasoning. But how much was true an how much "logic" put in place so I wouldn't lose Jay's love for me?

How good was I truly, in the end?

"I'm sorry, Jesse," I said softly.

Later that day, I scratched another line on the wall. Jay didn't kill Jesse, true. But he destroyed her life all the same.

My own life was destroyed, in a sense. There was no going back to my old life. Not that there had been much anyways. I had few friends, no pets, no family. I had still been waiting on life to happen. And it did, in the form of a lair in a mountain and a large dose of Stockholm's Syndrome.

My entire life had become Jay. Trying to pull Jay out of Zoom, trying to limit Hunter's destruction. Waiting for him to come back from Earth-1. I spent hours watching the invisible portal, waiting for it to turn blue. I alternatively walked on eggshells to avoid possible wrath and stood up to the most evil villain any earth had experienced.

Everything about me was consumed by Jay. I lived for him, by him, with him, because of him. I was so entertwined with Jay that I even grew concerned for myself.

Until he called me Katnip and looked at me with blue eyes. Until he flinched at painful memories that reminded him he was human. Until his face twisted with a grin of insanity that made me crackle inside.

Jay always seemed surprised at my loyalty. For all his swearing that I would one day join him, he was genuinely shocked when I kissed him, or when he found me waiting on the other end of the portal after a long day away at Earth-1, and his only being able to stay for a few moments.

Still I waited. Still I loved.

In spite of loneliness, in spite of his terrible deeds. In spite of everything, even myself.

In spite of the duality of my cool, hardened hatred and burning, flaming love.


	12. Chapter 12

I didn't know about Caitlin Snow.

Jay had been wooing her on Earth-1 as he infiltrated the Star Labs there, becoming friends with even the Speedster he would have to take speed from.

I know little of what happened there. I only know that as the weeks passed, he spent less and less time in his lair and more there.

Of course I was bitter at times. I was alone and without the one person in the world that cares for me. Our moments together grew brief. He seemed to genuinely miss me, and I made the decision to not pursue mistrust.

Jesse had come, and then she was gone. A speedster dressed all in scarlet came and went. I felt as though I were handcuffed again, restrained and unable to do anything. Simply observe, quiet and unseen.

Then a girl named Caitlin came.

And I watched from the shadows, as I grew so skilled at doing, listening to Jay proclaim his love and her deny it.

It was almost like a panic attack, but emptier. Instead of sharp jaws, there was a gaping hole. Instead of a thousand anxious voices, it was a single dead one, repeating the conversation over and over. But I was just as cold, just as scared.

Jay didn't love me. Jay left me for another girl to keep in his lair and woo as close to the line as he could.

I should have cried. I should have grown angry and made a vow to end Zoom. But I only looked at my tallies, playing out scenarios in my mind to win him back, to get rid of the girl on my bed, to end it all.

"I'm cured."

I turned to see his grin. The one he'd given Caitlin.

"You can never be cured of being a monster."

He flinched.

"I didn't kill Barry. The speedster. I was going to, and then Snow begged me to stop. She said that if any love for her I had was true, that I would stop," Jay said.

"And you did. For her." My voice was so dark that I expected it to vibrate.

"For you. It reminded me of you," he said.

Lies. Truth?

But it was my Jay that said it, and I loved him. The panic attack was fading away, and I believed him.

"You didn't kill him," I murmured. Jay enveloped me in a hug, and I buried myself against him.

For me.


	13. Chapter 13

Caitlin came and went. I didn't know why. I didn't know what Jay was doing in Earth-1. I just had some measure of relief that he seemed to be done torturing our earth, and a large amount of relief that he was cured.

And, of course, at the assurance that I was still his one and only.

He began bringing more Metahumans through the lair than ever. I still kept reserved. Jay's weakness couldn't be exposed. But I had no fear. Not from them, at least.

"I see Zoom still keeps his little pet," Black Siren said. She walked towards me, heels clicking on the concrete as her leather suit flared out behind her.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"We're just following orders," she said, giving me a black-lipped smirk. "We have a new earth to ransack."

I should stop them all, I thought. Kill them all, call a hero.

But what hero was there? Jay had this Barry's speed, and the Crimson Comet was no more than Jay's lie. There was only me, and I was powerless.

I didn't have enough room for the new tallies, I knew.

The Metas all went through the portal, leaving me alone with the masked man.

ZOOM WIL DI, he rapped.

U WANT THAT.

ALL WANT THAT.

I knew in my heart of hearts that it was true. But I didn't want him to die.

I wanted a final kiss. A final embrace. A finak exchange of contradiction-riddled "I love you"s.

I got far more than that.

Things of late had been moving almost too quickly for even Zoom. But one day, he came back to his lair for longer than just a few moments.

There was a blur of blue and flashes of my past, and then I was standing in a large, dark room. It was on a high floor of a building, with windows displaying a city far different from any I'd seen. The room was full of deska and shelves, a strange mix of beakers and machines and official looking paperwork.

"The forensics lab of CCPD on Earth-1," Jay said, voice deep. He was grinning at me, face dim in the lights of the strange city beyond.

"I'm on a different earth?" I asked. I didn't need an answer; it was just such a strange concept. I walked to the window, looking at the city beyond.

"This world will be ours, Katnip," Jay whispered, standing so close behind me that I could feel him.

"I don't want a world, Jay," I said. "I just want us."

"You'll havr that, Katnip! No one coming after either of us, not from any world." His voice was just behind my ear, warm and comforting.

I turned.

"Whatever you want to do, don't."

"Even if it's this?" He pressed himself close, slipping a hand under my hair and kissing me.

"Except that," I murmured against his lips.

He smiled.


	14. Chapter 14

Caitlin left. I watched her walk away from the CCPD, on to her friends and old life.

Jay had never given me that opportunity. I had never wanted it. I loved him, and I loved being with him.

And suddenly, I was very, very alone.

I later learned that Star Labs had tried to take down Zoom. They tried to send him back to our Earth. But at the last minute, he took someone important to them.

Time passe and Jay brought me back to the lair, where we had a new guest named Joe.

He looked pitiful, strung up and exhausted. I didn't know what Zoom wanted with him. I only knew I couldn't help. I couldn't save an entire earth from Zoom's destruction. I couldn't even save one man.

"Jay," I said.

"No."

"You didn't e-"

"I'm too close, Katnip." He wore the most insane grin yet. Jay put his hands on my shoulder, face close to mine. "Be happy for me!"

"At what cost?"

"Nothing. It costs you nothing." He put two fingers on my cheek. Fingers that had killed were now so gentle. I closed my eyes.

And then a storm appeared.

In it was Barry Allen, the speedster Zoom had been tormenting. I longed to cry out to him that I was sorry. That I wanted to help. That my own weakness might cost him everything.

It might cost everyone everything.

When the storm vanished, I took Jay's arm. I felt the leather, the electricity, the heat of his skin beneath.

Like magnets, we collided and kissed. For him, a kiss of early victory. For me, one of fear. One seeking comfort. Hunting for the person inside Hunter Zolomon.

And then we were on Earth-2.

"Wait for me," he said, smiling widely.

"I'll always wait for you," I swore. I always had.

And he was gone.

I waited. I didn't know where I was; everything was sleek and technological. My guess was this earth's Star Labs, and a stray mug soon proved me right.

Something was happening in the distance, out the window. An orb of light, with a rod beneath it. It flashed red and vanished.

I waited.

I wrote this, finally able to convey my thoughts through more than tally marks.

I am waiting.


	15. Chapter 15

The feeling hasn't left, and I fear it never will.

A cold pit of emptiness. A future gone blank, now that Jay isn't in it. A past that's meaningless. A present with no direction.

Zoom is dead. Taken by Time Wraiths, punished for his crimes.

I knew. I knew there would be no happy ending between us.

And it still hurts.

I find myself wishing for a final kiss. A final embrace. A final conversation. One that will never come.

The others here don't know what to make of me. I'm lost, but who wants to help Zoom's consort? I'm broken, but they think, deep down, I deserve it for not trying more to stop Hunter Zolomon.

I am done waiting. It's time for me to search. There are other earths, other Jays. I must be able to find a Hunter Zolomon like mine, who can love me and I can love back beyond all logic and reason. Another Hunter Zolomon with a little Jay Garrick inside.

I am hunting.

I will always hunt.

* * *

 **Hello, guys! This h as been a fun (read: it nearly made me cry) little fic, but Katnip's story isn't over. I have two more fics to follow.**

 **1\. Hunting for Jay Part II- Katnip is going to more Earths to search for a Hunter Zolomon she can love.**

 **2\. An AU of my AU where Katnip decides to work with Zoom instead of just loving Jay Garrick.**

 **If you guys have any other stories you would just adore to have me do, please let me know! I'm up for any suggestion that doesn't involve smut. And if you loved this story, then please drop some comments, reviews, kudos/votes/likes/hearts/general lovin' on it. It means the world to us authors!**

 **-J.A.**


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